Coventry Bears overcame an early scare to maintain their unbeaten start to the TotalRL.com Conference rugby league season with a 54-14 win at Leicester Phoenix.

The Bears - heading the overall table on points difference as one of six teams with a maximum from four matches - went ahead after only two minutes when Will Tunnicliffe scored in the corner.

But it looked as if Phoenix were on course to repeat last year's win in the corresponding fixture as they responded with three tries in the space of 18 minutes to blast into a 14-4 lead.

Slowly, however, Coventry came back into the game and tries by John Nicholls and Rich Pepperell got them back on level terms by half-time before they turned up the pressure another notch.

Rob Lowe - named Jumpin Jaks man-of-the-match - appeared to be held up when tackled by three players but somehow managed to break away and score under the posts, putting the Bears in front again, and skipper Alan Robinson benefited from a Leicester infringement to power through from five metres.

A break down the left wing saw Andy Lewis race home on 53 minutes before surges through the middle brought tries for Rich Davies and Lowe.

Steve Campton took advantage of a loose Leicester pass to intercept and run in from the halfway line, Francis Slater collected the ball from Alex van der Walt to claim Coventry's tenth try, and van der Walt turned provider on the final whistle to send in Joe Smith under the posts.